iOS and text selections

But with the changes to cursor navigation, scrolling, selecting and manipulating text in iOS 13 and iPadOS, you can finally select chunks of text, paste selections into other apps and more without the bubble menu getting in the way. Aside from navigation and making selections, there are also new productivity-boosting gestures for cut/copy/paste and undo/redo.

The iOS 13 update for the iPhone and iPod touch devices, as well as the new iPadOS software for iPad tablets, released for developers testing following the June 3 keynote talk at WWDC.

The updates will release commercially this fall.

iOS 13 & iPadOS: text selections made easy

The improvements in both iOS 13 and iPadOS make everyday operations like scrolling long documents, moving the cursor, selecting chunks of text and manipulating text selections faster and way more accurate than ever before.

Fast cursor navigation and scrolling

Rather than tap and hold to show the loupe, which then lets you move the cursor where you like, you can just pick the cursor and drag it to where you want without anything getting in the way. The new gesture takes a little bit of getting used to but once it does, you’ll never look back. As you move the cursor, it will automatically snap to lines and between words.

As you can see for yourself, moving the cursor in iOS 13 ands iPadOS is very natural.

Pick up the cursor and drag it to where you want, it’s that easy.

When you need to scroll through tons of content, like a really tall page in Safari or a complex document in Pages or a long chat in Messages, you no longer have to resort to rapid swiping. In iOS 13 and iPadOS, you can simply drag the scroll bar and scrub it like a boss.

In iOS 13 and iPadOS, you can finally drag the scroll bar.

In case you forgot, the iOS scroll bar appears when you start scrolling so you may need to scroll a little by swiping in order to show the scroll bar.

Easy text selections

Aside from navigation improvements, selections have been vastly improved with the ability to select passages of text with just a swipe. In other words, iOS 13 and iPadOS let you quickly select a custom block of text just by dragging your finger over it.

You can also use the following shortcuts to make quick selections:

Select a word: double-tap on it.

Select a sentence: tap on the text with three fingers.

Select a paragraph: tap on the text with four fingers.

Bubble menu: bring up the shortcuts menu by tapping once with three fingers.

iOS’s algorithm analyzes what you’re tapping to make selecting Data Detectors even easier.

Drag your finger over the text to make an arbitrary selection.

A double-tap quickly selects an address, phone number, email address or other string that appears as a Data Detector-powered hyperlink. A single tap on such a link executes default action, like before. For example, tapping an address opens the underlying location in Maps, but double-tapping the link selects the address so you can copy the underlying text.

New cut/copy/paste gestures

You can use the new time-saving gestures for cut, copy and paste operations.

Cut: pinch up with three fingers two times in a row to cut.

Copy: pinch up with three fingers to copy.

Paste: pinch down with three fingers to paste.

These new cut, copy and paste gestures work across all system and third-party apps.

Apple hasn’t innovated copy/paste for a long time so this is a welcome addition.

Select a whole paragraph with four taps.

Pictured below: the new copy gesture.

Copy selection with a three-finger pinch (do it twice to cut instead).

The copy/paste and undo/redo features from prior iOS editions were so convoluted that developers of pro apps like Procreate have implemented their own gestures for those functions. This is bad from a user experience standpoint because third-party gestures only work in their intended apps. That being said, it’s definitely great that Apple has updated cut/copy/paste and undo/redo for the modern age.

Cut, copy and paste gestures: New gestures make cut, copy and paste a snap. Pinch up with three fingers to quickly copy, pinch up with three fingers two times to cut and pinch down with three fingers to paste.

Undo and redo gestures: Undo with a simple three-finger swipe to the left or redo by swiping three fingers to the right.

Multi-select: Quickly select email messages, files and folders by tapping with two fingers and dragging.

These new gesture, including cut/copy/paste and undo/redo, also work on iPhones.